Everyone has it. He won the MVP in the celebrity all-star basketball game over the recent NBA weekend. I called that by the way. I actually predicted a triple double but that didn’t happen. I think MVP was based on fan voting and Justin Bieber has more fans than the Beatles did.

I have to be honest. I have jumped on the Bieber train. I am intrigued by him. He hangs out with all the hip-hop artists I enjoy. He gets gifts from Jay Z and Usher. He is everywhere. His songs are super catchy. I am buying his album as I type this. I swear. Don’t judge me, people who read my BLOG. I love the kid. Him and Lindsay Lohan are my two favorite people right now. Lindsay is pissing me off though. Betsy was right, as soon as Lindsay moved into the neighborhood the helicopters are all over the place. SHE JUST BORROWED THE NECKLACE PEOPLE!!! Still got your back, girl.

Back to Bieber. I went out and saw Justin Bieber, Never say Never 3D last night. I went up to the RAVE theatres off the 405 close to my pad in Venice. Nice theatre. Only $35.50 for two tickets, WTF. It is almost worth it. It was a 9:40pm showing on a Tuesday and there was NOBODY there! I guess everyone saw the movie it when it came out a couple of weeks back.

It was awesome! I literally welled up several times watching that kid’s story. It is crazy. The kid has an amazing talent. Maybe 1% of people on the planet are talented like him. I am envious, in a good way. It is sort of inspiring. Problem is, to be inspired by someone I would have to be able to achieve what that person has achieved or close to it. I got nothing on Justin Bieber. He whips out a Bongo for a Christmas or birthday gift at two years old and immediately has a rhythm. Like he could play the drums inside the womb. And the kid can sing. Everything. Hip hop, Pop, Country, French, shit, everything. And he can dance. And the ladies LOVE him. Young and old and small and thick. They all are part his. They own him. Crazy. In aw.

Bieber and his "baby" for the night...found online somewhere.

He sold out Madison Square Garden in 22 minutes! Performed with Boyz to Men, Miley Cyrus, Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s kid), Ludacris, and some others. And he has a face and a smile that lights up the room. And the kid is so f#$%ing confident. And he has balls. I credit Justin Bieber. I have a whole new respect for you. I like you before, mostly because people thought I was silly for doing so, but now I seriously am a huge fan. I hope I get to meet you someday. I just bought tickets to see my favorite artist, Eminem, at Bannaroo, and I wish you were going to be there.

I seriously hope Justin does something with American Idol this season. I know for a fact he will perform. I want them to have a Bieber week where he gets to coach! That would be unreal.

I got the “Bieber Fever” and I am not afraid to admit it. I am going to go listen to the album now…

What a trip. Literally. But also like, “What a trip?!”, like meaning like it did in the 70’s. Like trippy man. Whatever. You get the point.

My sister lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I went down there last week for a few days to meet up her and some other family (other sister, mother, and their significant others). I also took a lady friend. But it was not like a romantic getaway or anything. Just a vacation to catch up, reunite, and make up for some lost time. And enjoy friggin’ Mexico. Who doesn’t like to go to Mexico?

My sister has lived down there for a few years minus a short stint back in the US, so she is pretty dialed in. She set us up with this place called “Angel’s Rest” to stay at. Click on it to look at pics.

View from "Angel's Rest". Where we slept.

It was kind of like an upper class hostel. There were about ten rooms in the three-story castle. Castle. Ha. It was great. It was actually up on the side of the hill, a short walk from town. A couple of miles. My sister’s house was about a mile down the hill right off the beach so we were really really close and it made things pretty easy.

This “Angel’s” place was dope though. $25 bucks a night per room. My other sister shared a bathroom with me and my lady friend so it was pretty private. People just kind of wandered in and out of the place. Joe lived there, Liza, Liza’s son, some other Mexican dude, and some really nice older lady.

Our wonderful chef and sweetest lady EVER!

The older lady might not of lived there. She was rad though because she cooked us two different meals. We had pastor tacos(pork) with tortilla soup one night and chorizo and eggs one morning. We gave her a list of what we wanted and some cash the day before and then the next day she would whip these amazing meals up for us! AWESOME. And she was the sweetest little thing ever.

There were also three levels and a pool to jump into at “Angel’s”. We did a lot of hangin’ on the top level. My sister’s boyfriend and I might have done a bit too much hangin’ one night but ya know, shit happens. Hearts open up, your mind starts to make your mouth diarrhea, and BAM!, you start talking about family and past and childhood and all types of crap. Whatever. I call it bonding. I never met the dude before and we were sharing. I may have hurt some feelings, and have since apologized, but all the makes for a stronger family. I love them all.

OK, now the fun stuff. I am going to highlight two main events that were a huge part of making this trip spectacular. Like I said, my sister had lived down there for about three years so she knows a lot people. On day 2 she had this dude, Jimbo from Arkansas, pick us up in his pick-up truck.

Piled in Jimbo's pick-up truck

Jimbo from Arkansas

A lot of us. Maybe seven? Now Jimbo is a true redneck. He was cool as shit. That’s what he says too, “Cool as shit.” All the time. We all piled in his truck and drove up into the mountains. We later transferred to a bus, I guess cuz it gets a bit too dangerous. I preferred the truck. That bus made me want to barf sitting in the frigging back the whole time going back and forth for an hour, winding f#$%ing roads. Ugh. The reward was worth it. ZIPLINE! My sister’s friend, Michael, owns this Canopy/Zipline tour that is insane. It is called, Los Veranos Canopy Tour. We had a full day of zipping through forests, swimming with leaches, and playing with monkeys. Check the vids!

Thanks to Michael, Joe, and Jimbo for that! And all the dudes working at that place. Oh and thanks guys for forming that line of people to get me from hanging off the side of that cliff I fell down trying to take a piss on the side of the road. Almost died I tell you. Funny now though. It was amazing. I try not to use that word, amazing, very much. It is super played out these days. But this deserves it.

The next highlight was Jimbo once again piling us into his truck and cruising the opposite direction up to this private beach. I forgot the name. This wasn’t as long of a ride, nor was it as windy of a road. This was just a fun, wind in your hair, beer commercial, kind of ride. Just before we got to the beach we stopped to look at some crocodiles and took a picture with a giant tree. Thanks tree. And thanks crocs for not scaring the shit out of me because of the fence.

The tree near the crocs...

When we got there, the beach was awesome. It was fairly quiet and there were all these huts and people cooking and some tables and chairs set up out in between the little huts and the water. We claimed our spot and the cutest little old mexican dude came up and took our order. He wanted to know how many people were eating. There were seven I think. I always say seven. or fourteen if it is a larger group. My sister’s baby made the trip with us too! She is the cutest thing ever. Well, so are the kids of my other sister. I don’t want to piss anyone off. They are all freaking adorable. Anyways, the little dude showed back up two hours later with this huge full fish. He brought tortillas and salsa and we picked at it with our fingers and made the raddest little tacos. It was unreal. So insanely good. A taste of heaven.

the FISH and the BEACH

I don’t want to forget to mention the flat tire we got on the way home from the beach. I seriously don’t remember how we got home. Some of the stories blend together for me. Maybe another bus? I bet Jimbo’s truck is still down there. By the strip club that Eddie and I went to. The strip club that almost made Eddie single. Me too.

The trip was truly awesome. I could go on for days about it. Gay beaches, nights on the town with my sister, doing the worm at the club, acting to be Penelope Cruz (not me), a night dancing with the family we stayed with, tacos, tons of f#$%ing tacos, so many tacos, I must have eaten 47 tacos, wearing a “Hecho in Mexico” shirt I bought of the street and almost getting a beat down for doing so, almost buying the shortest shorts ever, Oxxo markets, strip cubs, Te Limon, Mila, Jai, Leah, Chelsea, Mom, Terri, Eddie, Leah’s friends, Jimbo, Joe, Liza, and anyone else forgot.

The trip was unreal and thank you everyone for making it amazing. Mom, we have now moved forward. It is an obstacle that needed to be overcome. I love you for that.

I cried in Mexico, I did shit I probably shouldn’t have but no regrets, I laughed more than anything else. VIVA MEXICO!

I came back with some more inspiration. More than I had when I left. To be a better man. To tell a better story. The story that I will be working on for years. I am just gonna to try to tell it better.

Over the next year we got together over a handful of times and shot some footage doing different types of shit and situations. I kept editing it, cutting out the crap, and sending it to Dad. I guess he kept writing. He didn’t really tell me what he was doing or what his plan was but about six months later he sent us a script. A screenplay that we were in. One that could potentially pave our way as actors in this tough brutal world of Los Angeles and Hollywood. We all got together and read it. I thought it was the greatest thing on the planet, of course. It was called Get She Water (GSW).

I heard a great way to get money for a film is to shoot a teaser or a trailer. Coincidentally the film’s first eighteen pages all take place in Los Angeles and introduce all the main characters and sort of establishes their mission for the rest of the film. So I decided to shoot the first section of the script for our little teaser. I started from scratch. We had a small budget. I had about $5000 to play with of my own hard cash I had saved from booking a commercial or two. So I was set to produce. I think it was my first producing job. The only thing I had produced so far were these little tapes I had been sending off to my dad, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. Next I needed to hire a director. At this point in the game I was going step by step with Dad. I had a friend Rob, who was one of the extended characters in GSW and was not only a pretty good actor but one of my best pals. I lied earlier because we actually included some other characters in developing the script outside of the original four. I purposely left out that part of the story saving a bit of face because another character I had put on tape back then was a chick I was together with, seriously. And of course that ended in a nightmare but that is another story in itself that I would not bore you with. Actually, it is far from boring but not quite ready to be revealed to the world. If you know me you probably know the story anyway. So really there were more than four of us that were put on tape, but that doesn’t matter really in the overall scheme of things. Except, don’t mix relationships with projects! That was some major diarrhea of the mouth so I apologize.

Anyways, Dad liked Rob and they shared some dialogue and I liked Rob and trusted him, so Daddio and I picked him to direct the film. So from that point on he was at all of the meetings to help pick the rest of the crew, mainly the Director of Photography (DP). I needed a good DP that was able to shoot on the fly, pretty fast, good, and also in physical shape enough to follow a dude running down the street at full speed. And cheap. Dan Coplan was our choice, except he wasn’t cheap. We interviewed about twenty different guys that answered our ad. Dad and I watched footage of about thirty people who had submitted for the job even before we narrowed it down to the interviews. Of course Dan “the man” was the most expensive, but we thought he was the best. He won me over with a crazy diarrhea story about a trip to Mexico or back from Mexico, all I remember was diarrhea. Speaking of diarrhea, Dan had his own sound person.

shooting at Air Conditioned Supper Club

I had a make-up and hair chick from my acting school who was awesome, Amy Rene. Then I was wardrobe and catering and everything else. Oh and let me give credit to Sara Woo who was so amazing in the last-minute-painting of a room at my house we were to use for a scene in the shoot. We pulled an all-nighter in between shoot days to paint the f#$%er. Sara and I worked at a bar together at the time, the Air Conditioned Supper Club, where we shot the main scene of the teaser. We painted the room on day two of the shoot after working at the bar the night before. Yup, I pulled an all-nighter, but I didn’t have to act the last day, I just had to produce, or monitor, and make sure everything went as planned. I remember falling asleep while sitting-up on the last day of shooting. I could hear Rob Smith acting in the other room and then suddenly sawing logs.

Lije Sarki, Rob Smith, and Kasey Buckley

Long story short, we shot the whole thing in three days. Eighteen pages total and eleven were in the bar in one twelve-hour span. That was rough. Three pages per day is what is normal for a normal shoot. But we weren’t normal. We had a tight budget and time constraints and everything else that goes into making an Indie flick. But fact is, we got it done and now I needed to edit the thing. iMovie wasn’t going to work for this so I put up another ad and went through the same process again to find an editor. Except this time it was just Dad and I watching more demo reels. I picked a chick to do it named Paula. I think my dad had second guessed the decision but mistakes are what makes us better. Paula was very sweet and nice in the beginning but we had our differences and that proved to be a major pain in the ass down the road. But funny thing is, I still hired her months later to edit my acting reel. We found out while editing that our sound sucked in a lot of it and that we couldn’t use most of the close-ups in the bar because the acting was not nearly as good as the acting in the master shots.

Garrett, Kasey, and Rob at the screening...such a great moment. ahhh

So in the end, rushing through all that bar scene and all those pages proved to come back to bite us in the ass. AND SOUND IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS EVER! Always have good sound. You can watch something all day long that might not look perfect but could be acted well but as soon as the sound is f#$%ed you lose the audience. My good friend Dave Hughes who was a DJ that I met at the bar I worked at told me one day he did post-sound. Turns out he helped me on this project. He did mini-wonders with the sound and between my father and I working directly with Paula to choose the “right” acting clips we got a little 23-minute teaser we were ready to show for some dough! Would I show that same little teaser today? HELL NO! But back then, it was all I knew. My first little project of many. FYI, I have worked with Dave Hughes on every single one of my projects since and he is so dang talented and such a solid dude that he needs a “shout out”. Thanks Dave.

the first batch of audience...

I found a little screening spot in Venice by my house and invited about a 100 people to come and check it out. The place only sat about forty so I had to show it twice back-to-back. I had some agents and managers and producers and casting directors show up. Mostly I had friends come and support and the cast and crew. I don’t know how I got so many people to come. When I think about it today, it is quite impressive. We were all pretty proud of the project. It felt good that night. It got some laughs and a lot of praise of nice work. This happened in October of 2006. What happened next was like a row of dominos collapsing. This was a good thing.

Plus I love the film, Beautiful Girls, so I had to say that. One of my favorites.

I got up this morning at 6am. Picked up Beau, a ‘duder’ I work with, got a coffee, went to the bathroom about four times, and then we were off to the races. Oh yeah, I made a little beef brisket omelet before I snagged Beau so I could power up for the 10K race.

That’s where we headed. Down to Redondo Beach for the Superbowl 10K. I didn’t even know about until last week when one of the girls from work, Tawny, told me all the girls from work were doing it. I was sold. So was Beau, obviously.

We got down there about 7AM and picked up our free t-shirts that we will never wear and met up with everyone. Ten minutes before the race starts I decide to run back to my car to drop off all my shit. It was freezing in the morning but ended up warming up right before the race. And then I f#$%ing had to go to the bathroom again! I was going a million miles per hour before the dang race even started.

The Baby Blue BBQ crew before the race

I was amped up! Eminem in the headphones. 5000 people. And they’re off!

The race was a little uphill at the beginning. I was cruising. I left the girls and Beau at the start. I was averaging around 7:30/mile for the first couple miles. I was passing people and then they would pass me back. It is crazy running with so many people. the energy just drives you. Awesome. So I hit the halfway mark and was feeling good. When you run back it looped around so I could see all the people behind me now. I high-fived Beau and got a sudden surge of energy.

I was cruising. Got my miles down to around 7:00/mile min. For some reason there was no five-mile marker. I thought the fourth mile was just super long. I passed a guy and said, “Where the hell are we?” He said we just passed 9K. I was like, “Heck yes!” I was farther than I thought.

I was sprinting. I must have done that last mile in 6 minutes. Crazy. I am going to look up my time right now. Still haven’t looked. I have probably been blowing smoke this whole BLOG. Let’s see. The results are in and the winner is…Lije @ 45:07. 34th place out of 284 in my men’s division. Not bad. 7:24min/mile. Saweeeeet!!!!

Well! I can tell you that I beat this girl dressed up as Wonderwoman. She was my mark. When I hit that last Kilometer all I wanted to do was pass her. She passed me a while back and all I wanted to do was pass her. I did. It was an amazing finish.

we finished!!!

We all met up and took some pics and talked about our experiences. Beau was super sweaty. The girls looked hot. Liz, Andrea, Tawny, and another one I didn’t know. Some dudes too. All repping Baby Blues BBQ! The mecca for everything cool in L.A.

Go Packers!

Have a great Superbowl…I will post my time when it’s up…not that you all care.

Oh, and Rick McCarthy, Justin Bieber, and Lindsey Lohan…I thought about all of you while I was running.

This headshot has to be from 2006 or earlier...Greg Crowder photography

Part 1: The Inspiration

Sitting in an acting class at the “Kahnstitute” sometime early in 2006 is where this crazy idea came from. The “Kahnstitute” is what we called the acting studio I studied at. Lesly Kahn is the creator of the studio and everyone and their mother has studied there at some point in their newbie acting career. One of my classmates at the time, Kristen Alcala, had her father, Felix, come in and speak to the class one day. I guess from what I can remember he was coming in as a mentor or someone who had been around the block, come up the tough way, and had to work hard to get where he was at. He was going to share some trials and tribulations with us. Teach us something, hopefully.

Felix is a very established Director with a very nice resume. One that I would like to have someday. Someday soon. He had a lot of stories to share with us. I remember how he said he worked at one of the main studios as some low-end assistant or something, but in his off time and during breaks he would go to the archive department and the “head” over there would let him read scripts and watch old footage. Or something like that. I was drinking a lot back then so memory gets foggy from time to time. The important part of his visit to class or the part that really grabbed me was when he was explaining where film and TV were headed. How it was so cheap and easy these days to make your own stuff. How the digital era had arrived and tools to make stuff was so much cheaper and more available. How we should just go out and shoot our own stuff. I was like, “Whoa!, BIG IDEA, light turns on!” I was excited. Let’s pave our own way as actors. Let’s show everyone how good we are ourselves. We don’t need to wait to be cast in a movie or a TV show by some lame-ass casting director who barely calls us “nobodies” into the room anyway. So that’s when it hit me. I am going make my own f#$%ing movie. That was the idea at least.

My father is a writer. He has had a life. Lot’s to draw on I guess. He is a very good writer. He is a different kind of writer. He writes kind of f#$%ed-up, or crooked, or dark, or mysterious. Unique is also a good word. I have a hard time understanding some of it. Most of it actually. Most of what I have read. I was thinking, “Let me get Dad to write a script and then I can make it into a movie.” I just wasn’t sure what to do next. Over the next holiday I spent with him I sort of pleaded my case. I think it was Thanksgiving in Louisville in 2005. He agreed to do it, but with no guarantees. That’s how he is though. If he said, “Let’s see where it goes,” then that was good enough for me. I figured once we get him started then it will finish by the power of the universe and everything else.

Over the next week I asked around to some of my fellow classmates, some older acquaintances, some friends, and some co-workers to see if they had any interested in the opportunity to make a movie. Ya know, be part of something special, something bigger. Now let me tell you that all these people I approached were all very different and unique. They had to be. Guys, girls, big, small, obnoxious, cute, hot, nerdy, all types. I got my one pal that I knew with some camera experience, Justin Feldman, to come shoot this “idea” that I had. I got these ten or so people together at the “Kahnsitute”. Lesly let me use one of the acting studios to shoot it in. I told everyone I invited to be prepared to tell the whole group their most embarrassing story. I gave them a heads-up so they could think of something and then when they showed up we taped them telling the story. One at a time we went through everyone. Some of it was funny. Some was painful. My acting teacher at the time, I think it was Todd Stashwick, said that if someone tells something truly embarrassing, it shows their true character, their true colors. You will see their mannerisms and their vulnerabilities and weaknesses and even their sense of humor, or lack of. So everybody got taped telling their stories. I remember Garrett talking about pissing himself in front of a cop. I talked about shitting myself. You get the idea. it was not all toilet talk, that’s just all I remember. Then we all went out on the town. Still on camera being taped. We tried to go bowling and got kicked out of the alley because of the camera. We were at Lucky Strike and I guess they don’t like cameras. Freakin’ Hollywood. We ended up at the Pig & Whistle They were cool and let us kick it on the on the patio for a couple of hours. We all just talked and told stories and said whatever came to our minds for the next few hours. All on tape. All recorded. I recently watched that footage. I can’t believe the shit I told people. I can’t believe some of the stuff my pal Keith said! None of these people knew each other at the time either. Crazy.

Lije and Rob at Pig & Whistle

I took all that footage we shot, watched it a bunch of times, and edited it into a nice little “best of the best”. I was not an editor but I had a MacBook. And MacBooks have iMovie, an editing program that is pretty easy to learn. So over the next few days I put together the little movie from our night out. I sent it to Dad to watch. He watched it. I was nervous. I didn’t know what we were doing yet. I waited for his call. I remember he called me. He told me to keep doing the same thing but just use Garrett, Kasey, Rob, and myself. Forget about the rest. Now the four people I just mentioned make a hell of a squad. All sorts of types and styles and characters. Great for a movie. Sorry to the rest. it was nothing personal. It just didn’t fit the next plan. This puts us at February 2006. This is a good spot to stop.

Next week:

Part 2: Get She Water

Thanks for reading,

always feel free to email me if you want to know more or if you think I can help you in anyway.

I am going to make this short and sweet. We need more money. Not a lot. Quite a little, from a lot of people. We are almost to the $2000 mark for funds raised. With the festival run ahead we will need at least a couple thousand more. Any little bit will help. If you give $25 bucks you get your name on the poster. Look at all the names on the poster! So much thanks to those who have already donated. We are also making a really cool t-shirt that will have all the names on them as well. ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE BECAUSE WE ARE SPONSORED BY A NON-PROFIT “SPONSOR A FILMMAKER” PROGRAM FROM “PATRON OF THE ARTS”.

I wish I had a trailer so I could show everyone the film but the dang this is only 10 minutes long and I wouldn’t want to ruin it. I can guarantee we will be attending a festival near you over the next year. This film will do well. it is a great project. Everyone will have the chance to attend a screening. Please help us out and donate. Anything is appreciated.

That’s what it felt like at least. Shredding. My buddy Andrew Hunt who is now a “big-time” producer called me out on a post I had written a while back. He said we needed to go skating. So he showed up at my house this morning at 8am so we could hit the Venice skatepark before it got too busy. Well, I also wanted to go early because I haven’t ridden the park in years and I used to be pretty good and I was afraid of getting embarrassed. Honestly, I am not embarrassed because of what other people think. It bothers me that I use to kind of rip it and now I am afraid I can’t do what I used to. So it’s basically me not wanting to suck for my own well-being. Same reason I don’t play video games anymore. I used to destroy me some Mortal Kombat and Madden. Now I get owned online by a three-year-old. It has also been about ten years since I have consistently ridden a skateboard. I mean, I ride my skateboard still, just not how I used to. Not as many tricks and stuff, ya know?

So we rolled out at 8am. Cruised over to the park. I instantly dropped into the bowl and started messing around. After about ten minutes of cruising, I shit you not, I was busting fatty kick-flips and heel-flips up off the wedges. I still had my “pop” too! I was so proud and pumped.

skating the wedge

This was honestly the best morning I have had in a long time. I felt like I did back in the day. It is sort of like getting in the ocean first thing in the morning. It affects the rest of your day in such a positive and productive way. I suggest to everyone to find that “something” that does it for you and start your day with that.

Andrew Hunt and myself...post shred

Then I went to Dogtown Crossfit and got my “work-out” on, dropped my car off to get fixed, and ran back four miles from the shop. It is only noon in L.A.

Skateboarding rules. We made a commitment to do this every week. I made a commitment to get all my skills back by the end of February. That’s if I don’t break something. Thank gosh for SAG insurance.

I get to act tomorrow in my favorite scene from Underbelly with Vanessa Evigan. Ryan Philander is directing.